Although the primordial heavenly emperor had perished and become a ghost, he was still an empyrean supreme and wielded that corresponding level of strength. But with Lu Yun firmly suppressing him, he felt an almost gibbering fear toward the young man.
Lu Yun walked up to the august personage and gently set the brush’s keen tip against his smooth face. The primordial heavenly emperor didn’t dare move; he held completely still as the bronze brush roved over his face.
Blood-like radiance flared from the brush’s tip and transmuted to crimson ink that dripped onto the emperor’s face. An eerie face appeared over the smooth expanse—one that laughed and cried at the same time and was horrifically resentful.
The face of an akasha ghost.
Power unique to an akasha ghost blossomed from the emperor’s body and he trembled, then found his footing. Lu Yun had turned the primordial heavenly emperor into an akasha ghost!
After he finished printing the ghostly face onto the emperor, Lu Yun wavered and the brush in his hand split back into three. They vanished into his nascent spirit and rested back within the Tome of Life and Death.
“You have turned me into an akasha ghost…” When the emperor next spoke, his voice drifted upon the air and carried a hint of ghostly presence to it.
The power of reincarnation faded from Lu Yun and he reverted to a high supreme. But with that, he sank into deep thought.
“Yes, I did. But why did I want to turn you into an akasha ghost?” He stared at the emperor, murmuring the question both to his victim and to himself.
It hadn’t been the brush that controlled him just now; a primitive instinct that inspired the desire had gripped him. It wasn’t the Three Brushes of Reincarnation that compelled him to turn the primordial heavenly emperor into an akasha ghost, but Lu Yun himself.
The brushes had only given him inspiration.
“The golden bridge of heaven and earth is formed out of my body. A fragment of my will rests here to ensure my survival.” The emperor quieted down upon hearing Lu Yun’s words. “If this bridge is destroyed, so would I vanish. I can leave now that you’ve turned me into an akasha ghost and refine the bridge anew into my treasure.”
The laughing and crying ghostly face slowly faded from the emperor’s features, changing into the face of a handsome man. He looked at Lu Yun with a complicated expression.
The young man suddenly realized what’d happened. He’d become an incredible existence for a short while thanks to the three brushes and Tome of Life and Death. His consciousness hadn’t awoken with spontaneous enlightenment; he’d been subconsciously aware of how to save the primordial heavenly emperor.
Thus, he turned the man into an akasha ghost.
“Do you know the akasha ghosts?” Lu Yun frowned slightly.
Akasha ghosts drew power from the Master of Darkness—there was a similar laughing and crying expression present on the mask. Their origins, however, stemmed from Lu Yun’s future self.
His future self would experience the great devastation in the distant future. Alone, bereft of dao partners, friends, and family… his loneliness ultimately transformed into infinite resentment that nearly killed his future self.
Thankfully, his future self came to his senses in time and journeyed thirty-three loops of reincarnation to witness each repeating cycle for himself. He discovered the secrets of the Land of Reincarnation and ultimately met Moran Dongning in her capacity as the Time Guard.
She utilized the Master of Darkness to release the overwhelming resentment from Lu Yun’s future self, turning it into ink and drawing the akasha ghosts. When they appeared, the future brush responsible for their drawing was naturally tainted by Lu Yun’s resentment. It manifested in the form of the big-headed doll.
Lu Yun’s resentment was a bitterness directed at himself, which was why the akasha ghosts sought to kill him when he was still weak.
He was their source, but this heavenly emperor who’d died in the Primordial Era was also aware of them! Yun Yi had mentioned Lu Yun to him, but something like the akasha ghosts were insignificant ants in her eyes. She wouldn’t have thought to bring them up.
Hence, Lu Yun was very confused why the primordial heavenly emperor possessed knowledge of them.
“Akasha ghosts are ghosts of heaven and earth. They reside in all things and are present everywhere. Their source is in the future and they plague the past,” the emperor murmured. “So you’re the origin of those terrifying things. Just how much resentment do you carry to give birth to those demonic things?”
Resentment wasn’t delineated by the strength of a being. Anything with intelligence nursed resentment when faced with unjust treatment. A mortal’s resentment could shake even a grand supreme if it was strong enough.
Lu Yun remained silent. It frightened him whenever he had to recall what his future self would endure. He would be the only one left in a bleak and desolate future. Demonic dao would ravage through the realms and fill them with destruction. When the great devastation finally arrived and all life perished, resetting back to the beginning, it would ignite an explosion of his resentment.
Everything was dead, everything was gone. There was no hope in the future, yet he remained alive. How incredible would that resentment be?
Lu Yun had no idea.
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He had even less of an idea how his resentment, after becoming an akasha ghost, would travel to the Primordial Era and cause trouble in that time period.
“At the same time, every sip and bite is preordained. If this wasn’t the case, I wouldn’t be able to become an akasha ghost,” sighed the emperor. The primordial times were in the past and he could look back into them or even meet the eyes of himself during that period. But what was the point?
The past could not be changed.
“But…” The emperor suddenly clenched his fists. “I was unable to leave before because I was trapped here. Now that I’m an akasha ghost, it is time to set my daughter free.”
“Your daughter? Yun Yi?” Lu Yun blinked. “Free from what?”
“She uses her body as the medium to seal the fissure between the chief worlds and land of darkness with the strength of order and disorder. She walks between life and death at every moment, teetering on the edge of order and disorder!” Anguish flashed through the emperor’s eyes.
If it wasn’t for Yun Yi using her body for a seal, darkness and disorder would’ve stabbed into their home long ago and created Dark World after Dark World in the chief worlds. They would’ve devoured the realm eons ago.
Lu Yun’s heart spasmed. He cultivated order, so he knew the destructive force that arose from the clash of order and disorder. But since order ruled the chief worlds, his order could quell disorder.
At the intersection between the chief worlds and land of darkness, however, order and disorder were much more balanced. They clashed against each other all the time and since Yun Yi used her own body as the seal, she had to suffer an unholy torment at every second.
That also meant that Lu Yun had only ever met one of her replicas, never her primary body.
